I saw parenting as evolving. I went 100 percent at birth. I devoted myself to my children and was extremely nurturing and protective. But my goal was to adjust constantly so that by the time they left the nest, they’d be independent.
I chose this approach because my parents were very controlling and then when I escaped, I went too far in claiming my freedom (and was inexperienced in life so made some non-prudent decisions.)
I wanted my kids to become independent gradually.
They watched so little TV growing up that my daughter’s partner “complains” that she seldom gets his clever pop culture references from the past.
But I unprotected them as they got older. After watching “Boyhood” with me as a young adult, my son said he had had the least rules of any kid he knew “except for the ones whose parents didn’t give a crap about them.” I trusted my kids to make good decisions as teens.
I think my approach worked. We escaped the teen drama and rebellion and both my kids — in their 30s — are living very good lives now.
I had a TV allowance until then time I was ten or eleven. When my mother lifted the allowance, it was Ione of the happiest days of my life!
Sounds like you were very intentional as well as adapting to circumstances, which I think are great assets in any endeavor. And I've only seen Boyhood once and now thanks to you it's in my rewatch list!
Boyhood was fantastic for my son because it closely mirrored my son’s chronology. We went out for Italian and saw it together in the theater— nobody else was there because some really dumb blockbuster was also playing.
It spurred some very wonderful mother-son conversations.
BTW: Even though my TV restrictions chafed when he was growing up, he internalized them. As a young adult did not even bother to purchase a TV after moving out! He eventually bought one years later with the idea visitors might want to watch a movie. It mostly sits unused.
That sounds amazing. I commend you for raising your children to be independent while still maintaining a close relationship. Could you share more about how you unprotected them as they grew up? In what ways, and at what stages? I am a father of a young child and have been thinking quite a bit about this. Thank you!
I was “overprotective” for the first years, and tried to loosen up a little bit each year. Like, they were pretty unaware of the nature of the world until probably late elementary school, and then I steadily exposed them to the real world. By high school, I treated them almost as full adults in charge of their own lives — maybe 85 percent and eventually 99.
Because I remember very well being poorly equipped to make my own good decisions in my late teens.
An example, I had to be home by midnight, exactly. If I were one second late there was hell to pay. I told my kids if they were running late because they were finishing a movie or something they should just tell me and let me know what time they’d be home. A half an hour or so was not at all a problem. This actually worked just fine. Whereas I used to speed and drive like hell if I knew I was running late.
It's interesting... I have never really thought in terms of over or under parenting. Instead, I've always been fixated upon breaking cycles of trauma and abuse, and not doing the same harm. My child is 12, and I haven't been able to avoid everything I went through—I'm a disabled single mother with health problems and hoped to avoid poverty. But... I have been able to remember this whole time that I'm not just raising my daughter, I'm nurturing our future relationship when she's grown up. I began with attachment parenting but today, I suppose I fall somewhere in the middle. I do allow her to make age appropriate mistakes without intervention, and I focus more on natural consequences versus creating punishments for her—I think that's important.
This is very very wise: "I have been able to remember this whole time that I'm not just raising my daughter, I'm nurturing our future relationship when she's grown up."
SUCH a great Substack David. My parents are gone. My mom was a controlling parent who "over parented" and my father permitted it. My mother insisted that my sister and I were to be self sufficient adults with careers no matter what and was our biggest cheerleader. My former husband and I were raised that as we were given from our parents, we were to pay it back by doing for our children, and we did. Along the way, we each had pretty satisfying careers and that informed our children that they should too. We lived for them. There was also, on a small level, inherited wealth. We love our children AND we like them. The reverse appears true and that is my greatest achievement. I have seen over time and again, including with a sibling, that parents who lived for themselves raise children who flounder. Just like Willy Loman. Why can't they see it coming, I always wonder. Renewing my Substack subscription today!!!
Therapy outbursts remind me of the scene in Backrooms (the new blockbuster directed by 20-year old Kane Parsons), in which therapist Mary (played by wonderful Renate Reinsve) drops her beatific mask to deliver home truths to manipulative Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor). I wonder whether therapists watching must secretly cheer during that!
My (British) parents were hands off in the working class 1960s/70s way, where children were expected to amuse themselves most of the time. I’ve tried to avoid being over-protective with my own children, but have definitely been more involved.
Thanks Wendy. I can't remember exactly how I reacted. But I was astonished. My therapist was clearly holding it inside for quite some time. In hindsight I feel guilty for having bored him so badly.
Enjoyed this thoughtful piece, David. My parents were strict and my mother too controlling but we were also left alone for big stretches to entertain ourselves. On balance, we had stability and predictability, which felt grounding. My husband and I were more hands on, but tried for balance. We didn’t helicopter like some of our peers. We didn’t take our son’s every success or struggle as our own, nor live vicariously through him. My worst moment of hands-off parenting was when I saw him fall from a nasty tackle in a soccer match right in front of me. He was brought to the sideline opposite and I made myself stay in my seat, not to be a hovering, embarrassingly uncool mother. Turns out, he fractured his humerus near the shoulder — a very painful break — and we did go to the urgent care after the game. Oops.
Thanks Julie. That was great restraint on your part. Stability and predictability are also key. My mother and father were unpredictable in their own ways. My mother had a temper and the extent of my father's leniency fluctuated a great deal. But we did have stability and were also left to our own devices.
Good topic. I don't think I (like many other people) started out with a chosen parenting style, but it just evolved with the circumstances. My biggest stimulus in some ways was the very different cultures from which Ray and I came and therefore what we brought to the table. I was American professional with the twist of a working mother emotionally heavily involved in her work. Ray's was English working class, running a pub, and having produced two boys, they saw no reason to take much further interest in what they were up to. You learn on the first child, but how much difference it makes whether you are heavily involved with them, the jury is out in my mind.
I think you can call the extremes of involvement unhealthy but other than the extremes it may not matter as much as parents like to think. Or as grown children like me complaining to therapists like to think.
Both of my young adult kids live in another state, and both were moving apartments on their own for the first time this Spring. My son (23) had the more intense move, himself and two friends, third floor walkup, a few days gap between the move out and move in dates. It was stressful for me not to be there, even though I couldn't be, and the other boys might not have wanted me there anyway, lol.
My husband and I gave advice, sent a few links, suggested Task Rabbit. I paid for them to park the van at a facility, as their idea was to somehow find street parking near their new apartment and just leave the van there, with literally everything they owned vulnerable.
My son had a difficult time finding a van during a busy moving time, and really couldn't handle driving a large van by himself. My family does live in town and luckily my brother was able to help out. It was a white knuckled 12 hours, and the parking and subsequent move in went smoother.
I feel like we under parented because we weren't actually there (I know many parents who have flown in to help their kids move and am not uncomfortable with that) and while I don't think we over parented with all our advice, our son became the project manger for the move because neither of the other roommates were coming up with suggestions. But how do you know all the steps for moving if you haven't done it before? And now they are more prepared for the next move (please God, let them not do this every year!)
Pam, I "get this." Our two older children in their early twenties were convinced by a RE broker to rent an apartment next to a construction site in an up and coming part of town. We remembered our own RE mistake and talked them out of it. They were unhappy with our interference for a bit. But they came around.
I like to think I flex given the situation. In some ways I underparent (i.e. give more independence) much, much more than my parents did, and in other ways I am a lot more hands on, but both are dictated by my daughter’s personality and needs. I think the key, like all things in life, is recognizing context and when enough is enough.
So much of how we parent is a reaction to how we were parented. And so the cycle circles on and on. Like time itself, progress is incremental but it does happen.
Ah, parenting. Well, always be there but let them alone to experience as much as possible. My parents were clearly besotted with one another and their work. Being neglected was awful but also made me daring, independent and able to see my own life separate from their’s. I loved them but often didn’t like them. My son had tons of freedom and got in trouble but he was watched and curbed, often without his knowing. I think it’s crucial to give children privacy but for them to know you are and always will be a force of love and help if they need it.
Thanks Molly for the comment. Availability when they want to come to you is a parental "activity" that is underrated. Sometimes just being in the home even when in separate rooms is important.
You are a couple years older than I am, and had kids much younger (mine is now 15) but I have to admit we quite probably over-parent our son and only child. My parents were far less involved in my upbringing-though I'd never describe them as uninterested. In fact I'd say, given the era, they were more hands on than most. But era is important here. Most parents we know are as involved as we are. It's hard not to be. The tools of technology allow us to keep track of our children--physically anyway--24/7. And their future is so much more uncertain, scary and unsettled than ours ever was. Or so it seems to me anyway.
I think there is parenting peer pressure in every generation. We all “set” ourselves in relation to what other parents do. If our kids were teenagers today I’m sure we would do things differently. I think the technology definitely makes a difference.
I enjoyed the book and was reading it while mourning my own stepfather figure and attending his funeral. It was a sweet companion for that experience.
Love this reflection on your parents. I do believe that both of my parents did their best, and in some cases my mother was a good mother and in other cases, she caused a lot of pain . My father was mostly absent and harmful and I still think he does the best he is capable of, he is just very limited and extremely wounded. I read once that “we all heal our own share of generational trauma” and I try and remember that my parents came to parenthood with their own experiences as children which in some cases were very painful and harmful. They did their best.
Jessica, I thought Eddie was a great character. I always silently cheered when he was the center of the book's attention.
I give my parents some grace for being very young and also for lacking the resources that later generations had in terms of thinking about being a parent as something to work at.
I saw parenting as evolving. I went 100 percent at birth. I devoted myself to my children and was extremely nurturing and protective. But my goal was to adjust constantly so that by the time they left the nest, they’d be independent.
I chose this approach because my parents were very controlling and then when I escaped, I went too far in claiming my freedom (and was inexperienced in life so made some non-prudent decisions.)
I wanted my kids to become independent gradually.
They watched so little TV growing up that my daughter’s partner “complains” that she seldom gets his clever pop culture references from the past.
But I unprotected them as they got older. After watching “Boyhood” with me as a young adult, my son said he had had the least rules of any kid he knew “except for the ones whose parents didn’t give a crap about them.” I trusted my kids to make good decisions as teens.
I think my approach worked. We escaped the teen drama and rebellion and both my kids — in their 30s — are living very good lives now.
I had a TV allowance until then time I was ten or eleven. When my mother lifted the allowance, it was Ione of the happiest days of my life!
Sounds like you were very intentional as well as adapting to circumstances, which I think are great assets in any endeavor. And I've only seen Boyhood once and now thanks to you it's in my rewatch list!
Boyhood was fantastic for my son because it closely mirrored my son’s chronology. We went out for Italian and saw it together in the theater— nobody else was there because some really dumb blockbuster was also playing.
It spurred some very wonderful mother-son conversations.
BTW: Even though my TV restrictions chafed when he was growing up, he internalized them. As a young adult did not even bother to purchase a TV after moving out! He eventually bought one years later with the idea visitors might want to watch a movie. It mostly sits unused.
He prefers reading. :)
That sounds amazing. I commend you for raising your children to be independent while still maintaining a close relationship. Could you share more about how you unprotected them as they grew up? In what ways, and at what stages? I am a father of a young child and have been thinking quite a bit about this. Thank you!
I was “overprotective” for the first years, and tried to loosen up a little bit each year. Like, they were pretty unaware of the nature of the world until probably late elementary school, and then I steadily exposed them to the real world. By high school, I treated them almost as full adults in charge of their own lives — maybe 85 percent and eventually 99.
Because I remember very well being poorly equipped to make my own good decisions in my late teens.
An example, I had to be home by midnight, exactly. If I were one second late there was hell to pay. I told my kids if they were running late because they were finishing a movie or something they should just tell me and let me know what time they’d be home. A half an hour or so was not at all a problem. This actually worked just fine. Whereas I used to speed and drive like hell if I knew I was running late.
It's interesting... I have never really thought in terms of over or under parenting. Instead, I've always been fixated upon breaking cycles of trauma and abuse, and not doing the same harm. My child is 12, and I haven't been able to avoid everything I went through—I'm a disabled single mother with health problems and hoped to avoid poverty. But... I have been able to remember this whole time that I'm not just raising my daughter, I'm nurturing our future relationship when she's grown up. I began with attachment parenting but today, I suppose I fall somewhere in the middle. I do allow her to make age appropriate mistakes without intervention, and I focus more on natural consequences versus creating punishments for her—I think that's important.
This is very very wise: "I have been able to remember this whole time that I'm not just raising my daughter, I'm nurturing our future relationship when she's grown up."
I never thought about it like that before!
David, this one’s a gem.
Thanks Debbie.
SUCH a great Substack David. My parents are gone. My mom was a controlling parent who "over parented" and my father permitted it. My mother insisted that my sister and I were to be self sufficient adults with careers no matter what and was our biggest cheerleader. My former husband and I were raised that as we were given from our parents, we were to pay it back by doing for our children, and we did. Along the way, we each had pretty satisfying careers and that informed our children that they should too. We lived for them. There was also, on a small level, inherited wealth. We love our children AND we like them. The reverse appears true and that is my greatest achievement. I have seen over time and again, including with a sibling, that parents who lived for themselves raise children who flounder. Just like Willy Loman. Why can't they see it coming, I always wonder. Renewing my Substack subscription today!!!
Thanks Sharon!
Parental victory is, I suppose, mutual comfort in being together. Also, that mutual comfort is very bad for fiction and memoir content!
Therapy outbursts remind me of the scene in Backrooms (the new blockbuster directed by 20-year old Kane Parsons), in which therapist Mary (played by wonderful Renate Reinsve) drops her beatific mask to deliver home truths to manipulative Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor). I wonder whether therapists watching must secretly cheer during that!
My (British) parents were hands off in the working class 1960s/70s way, where children were expected to amuse themselves most of the time. I’ve tried to avoid being over-protective with my own children, but have definitely been more involved.
Interesting topic, thanks, David.
Thanks Wendy. I can't remember exactly how I reacted. But I was astonished. My therapist was clearly holding it inside for quite some time. In hindsight I feel guilty for having bored him so badly.
Did he remain your therapist?! It does sound like an unprofessional reaction.
No. That was one of our last sessions. Worse than his yelling was my sense that he was bored.
Not surprised. Hard to come back from that.
Enjoyed this thoughtful piece, David. My parents were strict and my mother too controlling but we were also left alone for big stretches to entertain ourselves. On balance, we had stability and predictability, which felt grounding. My husband and I were more hands on, but tried for balance. We didn’t helicopter like some of our peers. We didn’t take our son’s every success or struggle as our own, nor live vicariously through him. My worst moment of hands-off parenting was when I saw him fall from a nasty tackle in a soccer match right in front of me. He was brought to the sideline opposite and I made myself stay in my seat, not to be a hovering, embarrassingly uncool mother. Turns out, he fractured his humerus near the shoulder — a very painful break — and we did go to the urgent care after the game. Oops.
Thanks Julie. That was great restraint on your part. Stability and predictability are also key. My mother and father were unpredictable in their own ways. My mother had a temper and the extent of my father's leniency fluctuated a great deal. But we did have stability and were also left to our own devices.
Good topic. I don't think I (like many other people) started out with a chosen parenting style, but it just evolved with the circumstances. My biggest stimulus in some ways was the very different cultures from which Ray and I came and therefore what we brought to the table. I was American professional with the twist of a working mother emotionally heavily involved in her work. Ray's was English working class, running a pub, and having produced two boys, they saw no reason to take much further interest in what they were up to. You learn on the first child, but how much difference it makes whether you are heavily involved with them, the jury is out in my mind.
I think you can call the extremes of involvement unhealthy but other than the extremes it may not matter as much as parents like to think. Or as grown children like me complaining to therapists like to think.
Both of my young adult kids live in another state, and both were moving apartments on their own for the first time this Spring. My son (23) had the more intense move, himself and two friends, third floor walkup, a few days gap between the move out and move in dates. It was stressful for me not to be there, even though I couldn't be, and the other boys might not have wanted me there anyway, lol.
My husband and I gave advice, sent a few links, suggested Task Rabbit. I paid for them to park the van at a facility, as their idea was to somehow find street parking near their new apartment and just leave the van there, with literally everything they owned vulnerable.
My son had a difficult time finding a van during a busy moving time, and really couldn't handle driving a large van by himself. My family does live in town and luckily my brother was able to help out. It was a white knuckled 12 hours, and the parking and subsequent move in went smoother.
I feel like we under parented because we weren't actually there (I know many parents who have flown in to help their kids move and am not uncomfortable with that) and while I don't think we over parented with all our advice, our son became the project manger for the move because neither of the other roommates were coming up with suggestions. But how do you know all the steps for moving if you haven't done it before? And now they are more prepared for the next move (please God, let them not do this every year!)
Pam, I "get this." Our two older children in their early twenties were convinced by a RE broker to rent an apartment next to a construction site in an up and coming part of town. We remembered our own RE mistake and talked them out of it. They were unhappy with our interference for a bit. But they came around.
I like to think I flex given the situation. In some ways I underparent (i.e. give more independence) much, much more than my parents did, and in other ways I am a lot more hands on, but both are dictated by my daughter’s personality and needs. I think the key, like all things in life, is recognizing context and when enough is enough.
Agree with this, Audrey. Moderation is usually the right answer.
So much of how we parent is a reaction to how we were parented. And so the cycle circles on and on. Like time itself, progress is incremental but it does happen.
That's true, Sri. We try ti take the good and the bad but inevitably take a mix.
Ann Patchett has stated that Daphne is not an autobiographical character.
She’s pretty similar in important respects––her parents’ divorce and the 17 year age gap between her and her husband.
Ah, parenting. Well, always be there but let them alone to experience as much as possible. My parents were clearly besotted with one another and their work. Being neglected was awful but also made me daring, independent and able to see my own life separate from their’s. I loved them but often didn’t like them. My son had tons of freedom and got in trouble but he was watched and curbed, often without his knowing. I think it’s crucial to give children privacy but for them to know you are and always will be a force of love and help if they need it.
Thanks Molly for the comment. Availability when they want to come to you is a parental "activity" that is underrated. Sometimes just being in the home even when in separate rooms is important.
Ah the distant parent. One of my top 10 bromides. “My parents had no business having children .” I’m one of 6 daughters. “ Open paragraph . Memoir.
You are a couple years older than I am, and had kids much younger (mine is now 15) but I have to admit we quite probably over-parent our son and only child. My parents were far less involved in my upbringing-though I'd never describe them as uninterested. In fact I'd say, given the era, they were more hands on than most. But era is important here. Most parents we know are as involved as we are. It's hard not to be. The tools of technology allow us to keep track of our children--physically anyway--24/7. And their future is so much more uncertain, scary and unsettled than ours ever was. Or so it seems to me anyway.
I think there is parenting peer pressure in every generation. We all “set” ourselves in relation to what other parents do. If our kids were teenagers today I’m sure we would do things differently. I think the technology definitely makes a difference.
Editorial comment from Debbie: “What’s wrong with calling me five times a day
😂😂 Yes Debbie I agree
I enjoyed the book and was reading it while mourning my own stepfather figure and attending his funeral. It was a sweet companion for that experience.
Love this reflection on your parents. I do believe that both of my parents did their best, and in some cases my mother was a good mother and in other cases, she caused a lot of pain . My father was mostly absent and harmful and I still think he does the best he is capable of, he is just very limited and extremely wounded. I read once that “we all heal our own share of generational trauma” and I try and remember that my parents came to parenthood with their own experiences as children which in some cases were very painful and harmful. They did their best.
Jessica, I thought Eddie was a great character. I always silently cheered when he was the center of the book's attention.
I give my parents some grace for being very young and also for lacking the resources that later generations had in terms of thinking about being a parent as something to work at.